Beer In Art #56: Mark Blanton’s Bohemia Pin-Up

This Sunday’s work of art is decidedly adult in nature, as much art often is, and is by Mark Blanton. Blanton is a modern artist, a hyper-realist it appears, and also has done a series of pin-up art, which he “created as a tribute to the Sixties’ art movement known as Pop Art and the work of Pop artist Mel Ramos, Pin-up artists Alberto Vargas and George Petty.” The highlighted work today, featuring Bohemia beer, is channeling Mel Ramos so much that for a long time I actually thought it was by Ramos.

Looking through Ramos’ oeuvre revealed, as expected, many, many paintings of nude women with a commercial product of similar size, a pop art style that Ramos pioneered. But as many different variations as Ramos painted, I could not find one featuring a beer. You can see his work at Modernism, Art History, or the Ro Gallery .

Not finding it among Ramos’ works, I started looking elsewhere to identify it eventually finding Mark Blanton, many of whose works are strikingly similar to Ramos.

Given the obvious phallic symbolism of a beer bottle it seems strange that Ramos never did a painting with beer, although he did paint one with a wine bottle. Luckily, Blanton stepped in to fill the void.